Comment by pjmlp
14 hours ago
Having been through a couple of layoffs and merges, as I approach mid-century, the MBA powered managers are always to blame, because the stupid way to manage every year has to be x% exponential increase over the previous year, always forgetting that it is physically impossible when everyone goes for the same goal.
And then when targets aren't met, it is the employees that get shown the door while management gets their bonus.
The companies that are happy getting what they need to keep the lights on, seldom go through such layoff rounds.
Ah but the shareholders can sue the CEO, well this seems to be an US approach to how companies are run.
> the stupid way to manage every year has to be x% exponential increase over the previous year, always forgetting that it is physically impossible when everyone goes for the same goal.
That's why we have this corporate ritual, which we carry out each year, or even each quarter - a solemn ceremony, where we divide everyone into two groups: the cost centers and the profit centers.
Everyone works in harmony for the same organizational goals, but the people of cost centers also bear an additional, sacred duty, the highest of callings: to give up their employment and prospects for the future, to have their due credit be taken by the people of profit centers and poured onto the altar of the all-powerful Board. It's through this sacrifice of the many, that the symmetry is broken, allowing the year-by-year metrics to continue growing, against all wisdom and the laws of thermodynamics.
> we divide everyone into two groups: the cost centers and the profit centers.
This would make some sort of sense if it was honest. For a start, the owners and shareholders are plainly cost centers (they are literally useless sinks of revenue).
Unfortunately this insane perspective is common. I’ve literally been told by a past employer that the revenue that I, personally, was bringing in to the company (by going way above and beyond) was greatly appreciated, but that they were unhappy about the cost of paying me a small fraction of this revenue as a pre-agreed performance bonus.
You dont understand; after they pay me, my boss and the c-suite their bonuses there is nothing left of the revenue that you, personally, bring in.
As if some people are born as cost centers, like it’s the genetic programming for pupillary distance.
If you want to be a profit center, be one.
When the body is in danger of dying should it stop healing the fingernails or the brain?
> As if some people are born as cost centers, like it’s the genetic programming for pupillary distance.
I literally said the opposite of it. The classification is descriptive, and frequently reevaluated. It'd not a property of a person, but a function of where they currently are in the org chart.
> If you want to be a profit center, be one.
Sure.
> When the body is in danger of dying should it stop healing the fingernails or the brain?
Nothing is dying, though. The body that is the org needs both kinds of centers to function. Like any other system that resists entropy, it has parts that are sacrificed so other parts are preserved.
That's true, let's think about it.
The brain is the most obvious cost center, consuming nutrients without doing anything to directly provide them. Legs move us towards food, but also away from it, so they're a wash. Eyes and ears are redundant with nose, in these lean times. Hands are essential to pick up food that's in a container we can't fit our face in. Mouth too. Digestive tract, on the other hand, is always complaining for more food and never generating any itself, so it has to go.
Once we've fired everyone but the C-suite, marketing, and accounts receivable, we'll have the most efficient, profit-center only company in existence!
> If you want to be a profit center, be one.
Thanks, I'm cured.
Ah, so this is why many companies end up full of sociopaths who contribute nothing to the actual revenue of the company: they all managed to weasel themselves into the “profit centers” while the chumps doing actual work that keeps the lights on remain in the “cost centers”.
It is extremely frustrating that the people who actually make these decisions are pretty shielded from the consequences, but I have learned to never take anything a billionaire says at face value.
There's basically no consequences for lying when you get to that level, and many incentives to (let's say) embellishing. Jack Dorsey is looking to make billions of dollars because of this announcement. If we find out that the AI reasoning was a bold faced lie (e.g. a leaked email or voicemail or something), I doubt that the stock price will go below what it was priced a week ago as a consequence.
It bothers me. I know some people who were victims of these cuts. These are really smart, hardworking people, and I don't think they're going to be easily be replaced with Claude or Codex, but Jack Dorsey ostensibly does. It has to feel like a slap in the face to think that your employer thinks that you're replaceable with a $20/month subscription.
Though of course, the reasoning doesn't really make any fucking sense to me; if you're 40+% more productive with AI, isn't that a good reason to keep the workforce and have them make more and cooler stuff and/or improve your infrastructure? If it's more productive couldn't you make a lot more stuff and blow your competitors out of the water? Presumably a good chunk of those who just got laid off are going to go work for your competitors, and presumably the competitors will have access to the same OpenAI or Anthropic subscriptions that you have.
Remember that economists think that this process you're talking about is healthy, good and this is how companies should be run. Take massive loans, hire, then discard people when you don't need them.
DOW is at 50.000.
what is sad is that it's not possible to tell if this is a genuine thought or sarcasm.
HN is weird like that.
Peak Capitalism was grandmas investing in companies to receive a dividend in retirement. This hunt for unicorns and magic forever growth is ruining everything.